NOTOC Trillions of answers exist for every question. Which answer are you?
My name is Hans Vonweiger, and let’s just say that the only difference between me and Salvador Dalí is that Dalí is not crazy. The book you’re reading right now was written during my time in the “Spitzer Center for Mildly Insane,” here in an undisclosed location near Dresden. I was sent here after a neighbour of mine discovered that I had written a five hundred page epic poetry about the daily travels of a group of ants that lived in my bathroom, going to my kitchen to get bread crumbs. Looking back, I realize that I was really insane. I mean, who writes epic poetry nowadays?
I intend to give a manuscript to one of the visitors of other patients, so that he may publish it, and I’ll be rich when I get out (I’ll be here for over five years! Which is the minimum time a guy must do. I can’t wait that long.) I’m writing this to pass time, actually, inbetween the consults with psychoanalysts and psychiatrists. But if I can get some money out of it, why not?
No ants.
Still no ants.
Okay. It appears that nothing happens in this damned place. Therefore, in the lack of any real writing material, I’ll describe the other patients. One each day. Until something worthy of note happens. Today I’ll start with Gunther Klein. He’s insane, really. And, like many crazy people, he hears voices in his head. Only, unlike most crazy people, the voices in his head tell him to be kind and help the world with a smile on his face…unfortunately, he doesn’t pay much attention to them. So he is terribly insane.
When he was put on trial for a bloodbath in Cologne, his lawyers managed to prove that he was insane, so he would go to an asylum for the criminally insane. Only his lawyers managed to prove he didn’t pay attention to the voices in his head, so he wasn’t terribly insane. Two days later he was put here, the world’s first asylum for mildly insane people. With first class service, along with having his hands bound straight so he can only open hand slap people.
That’s one the things I love with lawyers. If I steal a pig and hire a lawyer, he’ll prove my right to keep the pig by explaining the etymology of the word pig, by giving a pig anatomy class, and by asking if “steal” means “take without asking,” taking what is not yours” or, simply “taking.” And then he will defend my right to take things that I find in the ground and say they’re mine. And when I win the case, he gets four fifths of the pig as payment. Everybody wins.
But that is not important right now (Although pigs do have an interesting anatomy, and I may discuss that more thoroughly later, just like ants.) When he first came into here, I had a little talk with him. It went something like this:
“Hey…Klein.”
“Hey asshole…no! I will not greet him!”
“Huh?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just the voices…they want me to call you friend. They don’t know anything, I’m…you’re not my father, okay? You can’t tell me what to do! …So what if I fantasized about killing my father? I still respect him more than you!”
“…I’ll…be over there, if you need me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, you’d probably just mess up anywa…lalalala! I’m not hearing you!”
Really, he’s not terribly insane. I think he just grew up being told what to do, and so is rebellious to the point that he doesn’t care. If people just told him to ignore the voices instead of listen to them, he might be nicer since the voices are more like him then the people of authority. But I can’t help him, I’m not an authority for him.
But of course, most of the people here in the Spitzer Center aren’t all that interesting. Vügwer is a good friend of mine, for example. He is a millionaire, but he has this serious mental problem that can be summed up in the following interview he gave to the director when he came:
“So…you are a millionaire?”
“Yes.”
“And yet…you work?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“Well, I wished to cure people from their afflictions, so I started this little completely free hospital in Nigeria, where the poor people can have a decent medical care, for…”
“For free…There is a small part I didn’t understand very well. Do you actually cure people there?”
“Well, the most simple cases, yes. But I have highly educated medical specialists for the more compli…”
“No, I mean…when wounded or diseased people enter this…free hospital, do they leave cured?”
“Yes.”
“And they pay nothing for it?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! So they do pay for it!”
“No, I meant that yes, they do pay nothing for it. If I said no, it would be a double negative, wouldn’t you agree?”
“So who pays for it?”
“I do. With the profits from my other enterprises.”
“So…how do you profit from this free hospital?”
“I don’t.”
“And you still pay for it?”
“Yes. With some charity donations.”
“Yes, seems you had a man beaten for begging?”
“Yes. Had to set an example, it was a hospital. Not a welfare office.”
The director then shook his own head, and decided that Vügwer was one of his most serious cases. So he got into intensive treatment block, which is right beside my block, basic treatment, so we see each other all the time. He’s not a bad guy, really (Which is what you usually expect from millionaires.)
The only thing I don’t fully understand is how he managed to run that “free hospital” in Nigeria or something for so long. I mean, someone should’ve noticed his obvious signs of madness before. But I guess people don’t usually talk about this stuff to someone richer than you. By what I heard, he was only put here after the private owner, (That gets a lot of governmental funding from each guy he puts in here) discovered what his work in Africa was all about.
Vügwer was put in here the second the plane touched the ground.
Okay, maybe not that soon. But it was less than a day, by what the other guys say. Seems mildly insane people can’t be generous in the minds of most.
Today I must talk about a very important thing. Yes, I know that I established that I would describe the other inmates here, but what I have to say is very important. There seems to be a general misunderstanding of when mankind began. Okay, you can say that Australopithecus was “just like human, but not quite.” But I say we’re nothing alike.
Heck, you can say that those guys that invented tools are humans, but inventing tools is easy. Really, monkeys do that all the time. The basic difference between us and them is this: Frontal Lobe. Our frontal lobe totally rules!
But maybe, more importantly than that is abstract thought. Really, mankind didn’t start when those monkey people lifted up those bones near the big stone slabs. It started when a sapiens guy was strolling near the trees, stopped, looked around and thought: “Oh hey look! I’m having abstract thoughts!…Hey…I’m sentient! …Coooool.”
Now that this is out of the way, I’ll dance the monkey dance and kiss the chicken! Did I mention they gave me this new medicine today? That is why I didn’t write anything yesterday. It makes the pretty green colours in the Swush Magabar.;UdaeUU?UUUka/lsdjfovjl;
I couldn’t write again yesterday. I had to go in for interrogation.
“You like to write?”
“Yes.”
“You like your medicine?”
“Green.”
“Talkative?”
“Yes.”
“Only one word answers though?”
“Suffice.”
“And what if I ask a complex question?”
“Like?”
“I bought a apple for two dollars. What did I do?”
“Shopped.”
“I see. Your initial interview was more talkative. Perhaps it is the medication?”
“Perhaps.”
“Dammit Geiger, I told you that medicine wouldn’t work!”
“Huss, it worked with Jens.”
“Jens was a paranoid schizophrenic.”
“Sheesh. Haven’t you ever gone to psychiatry school? It’s almost the same thing.”
“What does ‘thinking the devil is his mother’ have to do with writing?”
“Haven’t you ever gone to psychoanalysis school? It’s almost the same thing!”
“That’s it. I’m tired of your mistakes. I’ll talk with the director about you. And stop medicating this man for now.”
Or at least that’s how I remember it. But maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, since I was medicated before going. The fact is that they stopped the medicine so I can go back to the usual routine. They decided I was docile enough.
I can’t believe it! Jügger, an orderly, stole almost all my papers, and burned them! Seriously, that guy has problems. He’s trying to implement electroshock therapy and physical punishments since I know him, but just because the director wouldn’t allow it (He said the government would close down this place, or something.) So he decided to mistreat the inmates, just for laughs.
Really, the guy has problems. Thankfully,I keep my manuscript with me at all times, so he just burned all my draft poems. He tried some mistreatment on Gunther, didn’t turn out all that well when he started beating on Jügger after Jügger took half of his lunch for not following the morning exercises. Gunther has been moved to the corner now.
And don’t get me started with what Huggart (the apparently cannibal, ex-psychiatrist and poet on his spare time inmate) did to him. And he deserved it too. I had written three pages about Huggart. Three pages! And really, it was one of my most insightful writing, you should’ve seen. It had drama, comedy, terror, action, insightful dialogues and all that.
But it appears my contribution to the world rating will remain nil, for now. Well,time to get to sleep before Jügger decides to punish us by having us study how to turn off lights and read digital clocks.
You were probably curious about Huggart (the apparently cannibal, ex-psychiatrist and sometimes poet inmate.) Well, I don’t remember very well what I had written, so I’ll give only the overview. Huggart was a psychiatrist working here in the Spitzer center, until, in one dark evening of winter…the good doctor gave a piercing scream! His infancy’s traumas came back to haunt him, and…as thunder roared…he went CRAZY!
Okay it wasn’t that dramatic. It’s just that, in a staff meeting, he stated, loudly to a female orderly: “Hmmm…you seem to have a…delicious left leg, Helga. Yes…I wouldn’t mind feasting on it one of those times.” he slowly licked his lips, clacked his teeth “Yes…feasting on it.” and then he pounced on the girl, and roared like a wild animal.
And laughed. “Hahah! Gotcha. Sucker. Really, you guys have to stop watching so many horror fil…why are you looking like this at me?” The next morning he went from chief-psychiatrist to inmate, in the most serious aisle. You are probably asking yourself now: “Kanibol n asilum fr midly insane!? Ur makin it up, LOL!” And I’ll have no choice but to reply that Huggart was not a cannibal. He just acted, looked and sounded like one. That’s why I call him “apparently cannibal.” He does seem to actually be degrading in mental health as he is forced to watch crude horror films to “turn him off” his craze for flesh.
For example, one of these days we were in the cafeteria, talking, and eating the strange formless mass of green…stuff they usually serve there in mondays. After unsuccessfully trying to eat his food, he told me:
“I’m not actually crazy you know?”
“Huh?”
“I’m not actually crazy. I’m using my psychoanalytical knowledge to appear crazy, so I can make friends more easily. Crazy people are easier to befriend, you know?”
“Oh. You’re smart.”
“Yeah. But appearing crazy is easy, look: Ugh, this green stuff is horrid. I wish there was more…meat in it.” he then intently stared at my arm “Yes. Meat. Meat is good.”
I said “OUCH!” when he suddenly bit my arm. Then he went back to normal position.
“Sorry. It was a bit too strong since I needed to be fast to give the ‘hungry animal’ feel. But you get the idea. If I just do that from time to time, I get free room, free food, free drink and free psychoanalytical treatment. Isn’t it grand?”
“Sure, but you’ll never be able to get bailed out.”
“Aw, but this place is great. Those real asylums, they can be hard sometimes. But this place, worse thing is Jugs.”
“Heh. Jugs.”
“Heh.”
“It’s funny, because Jugs can also mean…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
And we kept silent, pretending to eat the green foodish stuff until lunch was over.
And now, Gargheinger. She has a rare case of phobophobia. Which means she is verily afraid of being afraid, therefore she tends to avoid situations that would make her afraid more than if she just feared that particular situation. Unfortunately, she is also polyphobic, which means she fears many more things than a normal human being.
Her fears range from common arachnophobia, which is fear of spiders; to hellenologophobia, which is fear of greek words and complex scientific terms (Like hellenologophobia) and sesquipedalophobia, which is fear of long words (Like sesquipedalophobia.)
Now, usually I wouldn’t mind. It’s her problem, she takes care of it, but unfortunately, this doesn’t work because she usually meddles in other peoples’ affairs with her fears. For example, when we carry a glass of water near her, she can’t help but scream for us to “Be careful! It’s going to fall! Put it slowly on the floor! It’s going to fall!”
And normally, I wouldn’t mind, (If I can ignore Gunther’s rebellious yells against the voices in his head, I could ignore that) except she usually starts screaming so out of the sudden that it scares the hell out of me and makes me drop the glass. And then she has the guts to say, sobbing “I knew that would happen! I warned you!”
And that’s not even the worse of it. We can barely talk near her without her whimpering on the background. Just because, sometimes we say words like “actually.” I asked her why she was afraid of act…of the a-word, and she claimed it was a long word. I tried to tell her that…the a-word is not a long word, but she just said that people have different opinions on what is a long word. As if it explained anything.
Personally I think she’s making those fears up. Not because of the way she’s been bothering me, (Okay, maybe I am a little biased) but because she seems to like the attention it attracts to her a little too much. Then again, she’d have to be mildly insane to get herself bunked into an asylum just for attention.
The again…maybe she has a reason to be here. Also, I started taking other type of medication, that the doctors said was a “sure-fire,” whatever that means.
A new guy came in here today. But people are already picking on him because he has a dumb disease. Some delusional thingy that makes him associate things that happen now with things that happened before, and makes he think he’s living that, instead of this.
Unfortunately, what he learnt in history classes also count, so when he entered the Spitzer Center, he was yelling to everyone to bow, as the great Napoleon I from France entered regally his crowning ceremony. The orderlies dragged him to his room and gave him medicine, as he screamed against the revolutionary bastards.
Hence he thinks socially like some did in those days, so he’s pretty prejudice against black people, asian people, native american people, french people, and so on. For example, when I saw he saw Kamala, an Ethiopian emigrant that came here last month, (She seems unable to speak German, the psychoanalysts believe it’s a whole new form of Freudian slip) he screamed like a madman (Well…like a madder man) and begged us to free him from the evil magicks of the woman of darkness.
And then, yesterday, he came into my room at night. Wearing a pillowcase on his head and wielding a broom.
“Come, my friend. We shall explore the vastness of this New World,” he told me. I was a bit aghast, of course. it’s not everyday you hear things like that. Specially not from someone wearing his underwear on top of his pants. But I was far too curious not to follow him.
And thus we started our travels in the nightly wildernesses of the asylum, hearing strange nightly sounds and doing strange nightly things. “Columbus” guided our little “expedition,” holding his muske “musket” tightly (The natives could attack any moment, you know?)
And the night kept getting warmer and warmer as we went into the unexplored regions of the jun asylum, stepping on anthills, climbing stairs, and opening doors. Finding rooms no one else ever found, and people no one else would ever see. I left back for my quarters once we came across a giant ant. Eventually, we came across Gunther’s most newest quarters after he tried force feeding his force feeder. I took the pills they give him for him, so he’d have some time without. I decided not to release him though, he came to the conclusion that the voices saying it wasn’t my fault meant it was my fault and so he really wanted to kill me. Those pills seemed to just make him physically less competent, but I didn’t want to risk anything. Eventually we went full circle around the building, and I decided to call it a night.
Vügwer died today. He committed suicide after finding he had taken the wrong pills. He left a note saying that he wasn’t following the designation, and so had to set an example. The new guy came again, to my room, this time dressed in full conquistador attire, wherever he got those.
He was being closely followed by Huggart. That was tied tightly
“Come, my friend, I have found this native. He has expressed wishes to feast on my flesh, and thus is believed to be savage. If we manage to reach the ship before the day is over, we shall easily get millions of pounds.”
Well, you can’t blame me for standing up and dressing myself in my conquistador attire, I mean, it was probably my only chance of getting millions of pounds. So off we went, to reach our ship, walking through the dense jungle. We walqued through dense jungle for hours, until we heard sounds to our left.
The psychiatrists and psychenalysts were having a party in the staff room. The psychiatrists and psychenalysts were dancing in a blinking purple light, they were drinking and they were screming manically. Dancing around the flames and houling to the moon.
But we couldn’t stop, because we need to get to the ship and get millions of pounds. The place was full of anthills.
When I woque up, i were straped to a xair. The ajents got me! I had to escape? So I cuted the ties with my lazer visium and iscaped!
m bord wif dis? Dont wanta righte!
Conclusion
And the treatment was a success. The person writing this until now was a delusional schizophrenic. He had hallucinations that he was in a asylum for mildly insane people for being graphomaniac. Actually, he can barely write at all. I have been administering 20 cc of Vionkisine a day and got increasingly better results, as you can see. I have been using this to assess his grip on reality.
After successful psychiatric counsel, combined with the already mentioned drugs, he has realized the reality that he is unable to write, and have successfully been cured of his delusions. He has returned to his home today, with a much less serious and easily cured case of depression, and will remain under observation for at least one month.
And thus I finish my medical essay on the Vonweiger case.
–Gunderburg Jügger
Special thanks go to: *, for writing many small parts of the story, and giving an extra dose of confusion to the ending.
This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to actual people, places and stuff like that, is a mere coincidence. Really!
Since you read it till the end, why don’t you tell me Why?
/w